Friday, June 18, 2010

Working for the weekend

So, it's been one of those weeks, where suddenly just about every free hour of our day gets sucked into some sort of vortex of consultative stratgery and mid-management monkeyshines. Working for a living is a drag, and we keep pulling our eyelashes out to wish upon them that one day, a big sports-media conglomerate will come and whisk us away from all discussions of business plans and outreach and stakeholder relations.

(Although some relations with stakeholders sounds fun on a Friday night, youknowwhatI'msayin'?)

Anyways, we'll try to squeeze in some extra work this weekend so that we can get some regular infotainment posted throughout next week. We wouldn't want to have you all start coming to your own conclusions about the state of the Blue Jays, because what use would we be to you then?

There's a post on the staff ace, which has probably totally changed by now, although likely for the better. It seems like folks are already picking their sides, and aligning themselves behind one of the top three starters, but we really want to see someone make the case for the fifth starter, whoever that is this week.

Speaking of rotations...The Jays miss Tim Lincecum in this weekend's series, which we suppose is a good thing. But instead, they run into Barry Zito (3.10 ERA, 4.71 xFIP), Matt Cain (2.05 ERA, 4.54 xFIP) and Jonathan Sanchez (2.78 ERA, 4.13 xFIP). That's pretty scary, and we don't even know what the hell an xFIP is, or where it grazes in the winter.

Moreover, the Jays will counter with Brandon Morrow (who's been better over the past month, with a 3.60 ERA), the Pasty Ginger Ghost of Jesse Litsch (we can't bear to watch, so we'll be FFing through his innings) and Team Marcum (who we encourage to make his case for acedom).

There's a part of us that wants to think that this weekend, those three Gigantes pitchers get their comeuppance, and start to realize that pitching in the AL East is different than soft tossing into the 7-8-9 hitters in a Quadruple-A lineup and in a cavernous NL West ballpark. We'd really love to see a few of the Jays scuffling hitters (JoBau, Hill and Lind, in particular) get dialed in and start peppering the 200 level outfield seats with scorching hot projectiles.

More xFIPperyDid you know that RickRo is seventh in the Majors in xFIP? He trails only Cliff Lee, some cat named Holiday or something like that, Frank Liriano, Lincecum, Wainwright and Josh Johnson. Which is some pretty elite company.

A few more advanced metrics like this, and we just might find ourselves on Team RickRo by the end of the weekend.

A Friday Rock Out for Jonah KeriThe wise and sage Mr. Keri noted his undying devotion to Loverboy to us over Twitter last month, so we figured we'd make his day with an utterly appropriate Rock Out. Because when it comes right down to it, we have to concur with the words of Mr. Mike Reno:

Everybody's working for the weekendEverybody wants a little romanceEverybody's goin' off the deep endEverybody needs a second chance

10 comments:

I'm no sabermetrics expert, but I'm pretty sure those numbers mean those Giants pitchers have all been lucky this year and they're due to regress to the mean at some point, right? If so, this could be a good weekend for us!

And I fully expect former Bochy/Sabean victim FdotLew to come out swinging this weekend. I'll be cheering him on for sure.

Kind of exciting: the Jays seem pretty serious about promoting their product right now. Instead of former players or marginal bullpen pitchers, they're having RickRo and Marcum sign autographs for FAN Friday tonight... here's hoping they keep up that level of quality. It's nice to see the team's players actually participating in a bit of fan interaction too.

Maybe Ricky should learn from Brett Cecil's "chopping up chickens" incident that freak injuries are supposed to make you a better pitcher. Maybe carpal tunnel sets in, he decides to start throwing with his right hand, and suddenly we have the MLB's first ambidextrous ace... sounds alright to me.

Can anyone see any discernable advantage of having Nick Green over Mike McCoy? Unless the Jays are seriously considering giving McCoy a starting job at some point (maybe an A-Gonz deadline trade is in the works?), and they want him to get ready by playing every day at Vegas until then.